Tech Ed and MSDN Unplugged update

Sometimes it feels like we just live from one event to the next. So while we’ve now got the launch events out of the way, there is more coming – and we need your help to make them the best events they can be

First up – we are getting underway with our Unplugged sessions again. The unplugged sessions are where we tour around various towns and cities throughout New Zealand to give presentations. Nigel and I are doing these over the next few weeks. I’m expanding on my launch topic by doing a session on mixing up the web using HTTP, REST, WCF, PHP and IIS7 and Nigel is doing a Mix08 wrap up session.

The other thing that I’m starting to turn my attention to at the moment is Tech Ed. Each year we try and make Tech Ed better. This year is no exception – as I have more confirmed details, I’ll put them out here and on my blog. To start with though, I want your help.

What do you want to see at Tech Ed this year?

We are just starting to lock down track topics now, and I’m keen to hear from you. What sessions do you think will make Tech Ed better? What speakers do you want to see? What sessions should we not do? What level do you want us to pitch at? Do we have enough business sessions or should we have more introductory material?

If you have ideas, please either email me through the contact form, reply or leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

This is your opportunity to let us know how we can improve Tech Ed. Please note that while we will take all your suggestions into account, we may not be able to meet every need and whim, so please allow us to take some license with regards to the final outcome 🙂

Having Jesper back would be great, but Steve is a close second, their security talks are always good, especially when they show you the theory put into practice.

I would personally love to see more hardcore sessions, there is nothing worse than sitting thru a session which only goes as deep as some lame ass article i could have googled up on experts-exchange. I shouldn’t have to go to some esoteric session on Kerberos, or sit through a mind-numbing session on sharepoint or biztalk just to stretch the mind muscle.

A few sessions of WPF could also be good, but none of that "here’s how to create an rss reader in 5 mins" type of session that seemed to be so popular at last years event (i must of seen at least three of those).

I would like to see MOSS featured quite havily again, last year’s content was really good and I would like to see more.

Steve Riley has to come.

I have been to teched the last 4 years and last year the quality and content of the sponsors stands really slumped for me. They need to try harder to get our attention, more interactive, more free stuff, more stands ( i think there were less stands last year than previous years as well ).

I would really like to see some session for Testers. I have been attending the Tech Ed for the last couple of years and been very dissappointed of the non existence of Testers stream, considering QA is a very essential part of software development.